2007: the end of MotoGP?
Posted by Nick Trott at 10:30AM on Friday 26 January, 2007 6 Comments
The new 800cc MotoGP bikes are 190cc down on last year's machines, but in recent testing they're as quick as last year's 990cc bikes.
Huh?
Let's be honest here - the new 800cc bikes were never, ever going to be slower than the 990cc machines.
Why? Because the 2006 bikes had a surplus of power. We're talking about 250bhp (although rarely did all 250bhp find its way to the tarmac) - a situation that's almost as bad as having too little power.
So what did the teams do to keep this power in check? They ploughed squillions of dollars into developing trick electronic engine management and traction control systems designed to reign in the excess GGs.
And this rate of development was incredible. Last year, how many MotoGP bikes really, properly smoked their rear wheel without the rider flicking the 'Traction OFF' button beforehand?
And how many riders did you see going into corners sideways?
Back in 2002 - the first year of the new four-stroke MotoGP era - nearly every bike looked like it was on the edge of throwing the rider into orbit. Which it probably was.
Tyre companies have also been forced to maintain an extreme rate of development over the past few years. When you've got the power of a 2.7-litre Porsche Cayman and the contact patch of a squished vole you need to get your finest tyre eggheads on the case, pronto.
And they did. The result, and the situation we have today, is highly developed tyres that can cope with the reduced power of the 800cc bikes and deliver simply amazing corner speeds.
Someone at the top floor of MotoGP HQ has screwed up. The 2007 bikes are as fast as ever.
But the worry is not necessarily that the bikes are faster than ever, it's how they go about being faster than ever.
The new equilibrium between grip and power has resulted in MotoGP bikes that rarely slip, rarely slide and circulate tracks on a fixed trajectory not unlike the manner F1 cars go about their business.
Unless someone calls for the banning of traction control. Now where have we heard that before?
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6 Comments for "2007: the end of MotoGP?"
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I very rarely watch F1 these days as it has at times become so anodyne and predictable blah blah. Good for ensuring a Sunday afternoon kip though.
I have become a convert to Moto GP because it seems to be the antithesis of F1. Valentino Rossi doing a burn out in Parc Ferme to attract attention from a Pedrosa win - childish but fun.
To me the attraction of the sport are the extreme levels of bike control on display (coincidently I began to watch when the four stroke bikes entered the fray) and the resultant drama that can ensue. I hadn't really considered the impact of the 800 cc bikes, but after a season where arguably the most talented riders such as Rossi and Pedrosa finished behind the more pedestrian Hayden (sorry Nicky, I am sure that you are lovely Bloke) riding a development bike for the 2007 season...say no more
Even riders like Rossi and Troy Corser (WSB) say that electronic aids are currently taking away some of the skill needed to go super-fast on 2 wheels....but some argue that it makes the racing closer for spectators. It's not rare in most GP's for the bikes in the first 3-5 rows of the starting grid to be seperated by 1 second or less. Speaking of power, some say that at the end of the 990cc era, the Honda and Ducati factory bikes were making close to 300hp. Tyres were definately the limiting factor in the 990cc era because the regulations didn't allow them to be wider. The limit was 6.5 or 7 inches, I think. Advances in tyre compounds (Michelin and Bridgestone have extensive F1 experience to draw from) couldn't overcome the limitations of a contact patch smaller than a credit card. Some may disagree, but motorcycle GP regulations are stricter than even F1... Eg. tyre width, minimum seat height, maximum rake angle, rider position, maximum wheelbase, size of frontal area...etc. These regulation have seriously limited cornering speeds, which explains why MotoGP bikes are slower than F1 cars on 90% of the world's circuits... but they are still deemed too fast, and now with smaller displacement engines which produce lighter rotating mass, they corner even faster! The only thing the new rules have managed to do is lower speeds on straights, but the bikes will be just as fast up top by next year, I say.
What worries me even more is the gap between prototype and production based motorcycles.
World Superbikes (WSB) is the premier production based series for motorcycles. In recent tests held in Phillip Island, WSB champ Troy Bayliss posted a 1min.30.7sec lap. The time recorded by Bayliss was 1.7 seconds slower that the pole position time of 1min.29sec recorded by current MotoGP world champ Nicky Hayden on his prototype factory Honda 990cc V5, but given that Hayden was running state-of-the-art Michelin tires and Bayliss and all other Superbike riders are limited to the same short list of Pirelli "production" racing tires, the true performance potential of the top Superbike and MotoGP machines seems much closer than would be expected.
To put things into perspective for all you cage-drivers, try to imagine a DTM or WTCC car being just a couple of seconds slower around Silverstone than a Formula 1 car. Unthinkable!
Just my 2 cents. Cheers!
In my opinion, MotoGP isn't going to become as dull as F1 in the near future. F1 has two major flaws that MotoGp hasn't (yet).
The first flaw is that F1 cars can't race too close to each other due to aerodinamics being the main factor for grip. MotoGP bikes can race in packs of 5-6 and still be able to turn.
The second F1 flaw in my opinion is pit-stops. A driver doesn't really need to overtake to win: a clever strategy will bring him in front of the competition more often than a daring maneuver. In MotoGP, if a rider wants the first place, he has to earn it the hard way.
So, to sum it up, MotoGP may be losing a few thrills, but it remains, and will remain for some time at least, more exciting than F1 by a long long way.
I'm obviously missing the down point,it's only 18BHP down on its big brother the 2.0L Turbo SRI-T which is a much heavier engine and the fuel economy isn't great. So the 1.6 Turbo is better for the environment, whilst still giving the satisfaction to those like Jeremy concerned with POWER!Are you kidding me? They said the change in fuelling of the 500cc bikes would ruin it beacuse they were so user friendly, then it was the change to 1000cc four strokes and user friendliness, now it's the 800cc bikes. Through all of this the racing has been out of this world.
The problem with F1 is that the cars have outgrown the tracks, something unlikely to happen to bikes. On top of this, a rider has a lot more input into a successful laptime than a driver of an F1 car, no matter how similar the machine.
The biggest threat to Motogp is the loss of Valentino Rossi because lets face it, Dani Pedrosa has all the charisma and charm of a walnut (of which he has similar resemblance).